womens clothing vendors

[cavman63]

Greetings to all,
I have a friend who is interested in upgrading her civilian immpression. she is looking for vendors of dresses, undergarments, Bonnets etc. She is fairly new to the hobby but needs advice. She wants to portray a middle class type. I would appreciate any info on vendors she can contact or websites she could go to. I looked for some of the old threads but cant find what im looking for.
Thank you, Patrick McAllister
Critter Company
Wig

[ElizabethClark]

Please encourage her to join on here! We're always pleased to mentor a newbie!

Altantic Guard Soldier's Aid Society has a very comprehensive civilian vendor list, and focuses on accuracy:

www.agsas.org (http://www.agsas.org)

Two vendors who may not be on the AGSAS list just yet, but whom I would recommend for integrity, quality, and accuracy, are:

Hank Trent http://www.hanktrent.com

Anna Allen http://www.thegracefullady.com

Does the lady in question sew at all? If she is willing to do some of her own sewing (perhaps even just undergarments), she'll save quite a lot of money on an accurate impression.

[cavman63]

Thank you Elizabeth. That will help . She actually does sew quite well and has made her own dresses and undergarments .but needs better patterns etc. herr time is limited so thats a factor as well .I will see that she signs up and posts questions on the ac site thank you, Patrick Mcallister
Critter
wiG

[Spinster]

[ . She actually does sew quite well and has made her own dresses and undergarments .but needs better patterns etc. Patrick Mcallister


Elizabeth is being too modest here---send her to Elizebeth's site for the most understandable patterns, books and instructions for custom fitting high quality women's clothing for a wide range of impression types.

[rebelrose]

This is my first post and I couldn't figure out how to start a new thread so please accept my apologies! I've surfed the web over and cannot find any pictures or info on what a poor woman would have worn during the Civil War period, except one sentence that they would have worn what is called a "wrapper". I do not want to make a dress that would have been worn by a middle class woman, which is 99% of what I've been seeing on the web. My ancestor was a poor farm wife and that's the sort of "impression" I want to do. I found one picture of a "wrapper" on the web but the dress was so dark it was hard for me to tell exactly how it was made. All that being said, maybe a "wrapper" is not authentic. I'm very new so I'm just trusting what info I've been able to find so far. I know how to sew and can make my own dress if I can just find a picture to look at. A pattern would be very helpful but I can make a dress without one if I have to. Help please! --Lisa Jillani

[Spinster]

A "wrapper" would have been used by a woman of a higher economic class than you are trying to portray---its really a glorified bathrobe, but made to be worn with corset and hoops, as you are wasting the morning eating bon-bons on the south portico.......

You need a "work dress" or "wash dress" . Long sleeve, dropped shoulders, round neck, dogleg opening, gauged skirt, and depending on your age, maybe even a gathered bodice. I'd recommend Past Patterns for this effort.

All that said, we've had a lot of fun with Susan's rusty black wrapper, also made off Past Patterns. In her case, we drew on the idea of the ubiquitious eccentric Southern Great Aunt who stays in her robe all day and never seems to quite manage to get dressed. Add Susan's ability to mutter absently in French, and you have a first person character that folks give a real wide berth...

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Well, first I have to say I don't know which website says that poor women only wore wrappers, as to be blunt; that's crap. What signified being poor was often times not what KIND of names we've applied to clothing of the past; but rather what condition it was in, how closely it was related to cutting edge fashion, what fabrics consisted of the garment, etc. Not poor people, rich people, middle class people ONLY WORE X-Y-Z.

In AGSAS, we portray the average lower middle class people, though we variate to keep things interesting. And before I progress any further, I would like to add; don't get in a rut of "I only do A-B-C" and never explore "D-E-F". It's that type mentality that I've seen burn people out and they're out of the hobby within 10-15 years (not that I've been reenacting that long; but I know people who are on hiatus) and sometimes it's shorter than that, 2-3 years.

Now on to the lower classes and clothing, there's not THAT much difference between a middle or upper class woman's plain, cotton or wool dress. Wash or "work" dresses probably would predominate in a lower class woman's wardrobe versus numerous silk gowns. I'd imagine that there was one presentable dress reserved for special occasions and church (much like slave and free black clothing). Perhaps not silk, but maybe a decent wool dress. I personally don't think that by the 1860s time frame that cage crinolines were above and beyond the reach of many in the less wealthy classes. Someone on the forum perhaps may have the reference to working class women in textile factories wearing hoops to work. (There's a problem, know I've heard it don't know who told me now.) A great wartime image (and it's referenced in my article on Cage Crinolines in the Wartime South from the December 2003/January 2004 Citizens' Companion) is the one taken by Timothy O'Sullivan at Cedar Mountain in August 1862. Just the same, the corded (starched) petticoat has been around for decades and many still wore them.

On AGSAS.org we have some images of us in our working class mode. The Timothy O'Sullivan image is shown on our website with a picture of us in a eerily similiar and totally by chance pose. http://www.agsas.org/photos/skymeadows-welbourne/thennow.JPG

A shot of us and our friends, the Eno Soldiers Relief Society, in late war yeoman North Carolina mode: http://www.mindspring.com/~nixnox/soldiercivilian.html

The Hot Corn G'hals in New York have information in reference to what they suggest for the poorer class to wear. That information can be found at: http://www.myrtle-avenue.com/daybreak/ladies.html

[rebelrose]

[QUOTE=Spinster]A "wrapper" would have been used by a woman of a higher economic class than you are trying to portray---its really a glorified bathrobe, but made to be worn with corset and hoops, as you are wasting the morning eating bon-bons on the south portico......."

Now that you mention it I do remember reading many years ago about a wrapper and they were refering to something the upper class wore. This garment I read about that was referred to as a wrapper was basically a shapeless "A-line" dress with bishop sleeves and was big and baggy because most women were pregnant frequently and the bagginess accommodated that. It was cinched in at the waist with the apron. All that might be bogus, that's why I appreciate all of the input from you all on this site. Another question: were *all* dresses fastened in the front with hook & eyes? And are *all* the dresses one piece, never a skirt and blouse?

[rebelrose]

[QUOTE=Emmanuel Dabney]
In AGSAS, we portray the average lower middle class people, though we variate to keep things interesting. And before I progress any further, I would like to add; don't get in a rut of "I only do A-B-C" and never explore "D-E-F". It's that type mentality that I've seen burn people out and they're out of the hobby within 10-15 years (not that I've been reenacting that long; but I know people who are on hiatus) and sometimes it's shorter than that, 2-3 years."

I don't know how long I'll be doing this. Right now I only do this 1-2 times a year at special events (I've been a rev. war reenactor for over 15 years & that is my primary interest) but when I do do it I want to be authentic.

"I personally don't think that by the 1860s time frame that cage crinolines were above and beyond the reach of many in the less wealthy classes. Someone on the forum perhaps may have the reference to working class women in textile factories wearing hoops to work."

My ancestor would have been working on a farm so she would not have worn hoops, correct?

"On AGSAS.org we have some images of us in our working class mode."

Thank you. These are just the sorts of images I've been looking for.

--Lisa Jillani

[Johan Steele]

I'll add my recomendation to Mrs Clark... she has been a godsend to my wife and I know at the very least I appreciate the heck out of her efforts.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

"I personally don't think that by the 1860s time frame that cage crinolines were above and beyond the reach of many in the less wealthy classes. Someone on the forum perhaps may have the reference to working class women in textile factories wearing hoops to work."

"My ancestor would have been working on a farm so she would not have worn hoops, correct?"

Don't know, depends on WHAT she was doing. If she was harvesting crops, maybe not. However, Sullivan's photo shows a farming family in a log cabin, three women wearing hoops, four women in image. Don't know what they were doing, the man seems to perhaps been employed in some sort of labor before the image was *shot.* In doing farm labor, maybe hoops were worn maybe not. I'm sure that was a matter of personal preference. The main message in that quote is I've heard people say "Oh so and so couldn't have afforded a cage due to their financial situation." The way I understand it crinolines were like gum today; easily had by those who wanted them and only those who were just really absorbed in scraping out a living due to extreme situations would have difficulty obtaining them. Sullivan's picture offers wartime Southerners who don't live in a grandiose place, yet they look presentable. My thoughts anyways.

[Carolann Schmitt]

Responding to several posts:

Terre Lawson wrote:
"A "wrapper" would have been used by a woman of a higher economic class than you are trying to portray---its really a glorified bathrobe, but made to be worn with corset and hoops, as you are wasting the morning eating bon-bons on the south portico......."

As Mrs. Lawson pointed out there were some very elegant wrappers worn by members of the upper socio-economic classes for “at-home” wear. But the wrapper as a garment in general was worn by all socio-economic classes. There are dozens of extant examples of simple wrappers made from wash cottons that show evidence of their wear as a practical, utilitarian garment. And there are numerous diary entries from women of lower and middle socio-economic classes that mention wearing and/or making wrappers.

Lisa wrote:
"This garment I read about that was referred to as a wrapper was basically a shapeless "A-line" dress with bishop sleeves and was big and baggy..."

The vast majority of wrappers from the mid-19th century are not the dressmaker’s equivalent of a Sibley tent. :-) Most of them have fitted backs and underbodies. The front panel of the dress may be loose and flowing or may use a series of drawstrings and/or belts or sashes to control the fullness. Their construction is quite interesting and is the key to the overall versatility of the garment.

Emmanual wrote:
""I personally don't think that by the 1860s time frame that cage crinolines were above and beyond the reach of many in the less wealthy classes."

Advertisements from the period indicate that cage crinolines were relatively inexpensive. An article in Godey’s Lady’s Book touts the advantages of Mrs. Demorests’s crinolines and lists the prices from $.25 to $2.00 depending on the number of steels.

"Someone on the forum perhaps may have the reference to working class women in textile factories wearing hoops to work."

I have several references of women wearing crinolines in textile factories, the Thompson factories (the world's largest manufacturer of corsets and crinolines), and in retail stores.

"Don't know, depends on WHAT she was doing. If she was harvesting crops, maybe not."

I heartily second Emmanuel’s statement. Wearing a crinoline while harvesting crops? Most unlikely. The same woman wearing a crinoline under her dress when she makes a shopping trip to the nearest town or to church or to visit a neighbor? Definitely.

Lisa wrote:
"were *all* dresses fastened in the front with hook & eyes? And are *all* the dresses one piece, never a skirt and blouse?"

Front closures on a dress can include: hooks-and-eyes, hooks-and-eyelets, buttons-and-buttonholes, and functional hooks-and-eyes with decorative buttons on top. The most common garment for women is a one-piece dress with bodice and skirt made from the same fabric. A two-piece outfit, with contrasting fabric used for the bodice and skirt, is a style more appropriate for young ladies (teens) or very young women.

[Spinster]

Another question: were *all* dresses fastened in the front with hook & eyes? And are *all* the dresses one piece, never a skirt and blouse?

One finds period examples with hook/eye closures as well as buttons. But lets take it a step further and look at the practicality of the period. Fabrics were reused in a variety of ways, and a dress might be refashioned several times, and could be even remade by turning the fabric inside out and resewing the whole dress to show the unfaded side of the fabric. Fabric was expensive, labor was inexpensive.

If one works button holes into a section of fabric, that buttonhole area is pretty well shot for any kind of reuse. If one joins the same dress with hooks and eyes, that section can be picked apart, turned, and resized with relative ease. And one can then add decorative, non-functional buttons on the dress, and change them easily with the whim of fashion.

Practical common dress construction of the period lent itself to thifty use by common folks. In a bit of "experimental archelogy" I recently took a dress(obtained in a trade) that was over 8 inches too large in the waist and 3 inches too long waisted for me. It was a well-made cotton dress(possibly made by Linda Grey) of a pattern and construction suitable to the best dress of a farm woman. It had passed through a number of hands, and was now well-washed and faded.

A half hour's work to pick the waist band of the gauged skirt off the bodice. Another to have a friend to pin the darts to my figure. And about two hours to take out some of the gauged skirt, draw up the threads, whip it back on the waist band and whip the band to the bodice at a point 3 inches higher than its last incarnation. I did not attempt to deal with extra fullness in the corded shoulders, as I want this dress for a work dress, and do a lot of heavy lifting in my normal impression. Three hours of work, and I have a dress that is suitable to my impression, and remade in much the same way it would have been in the period.

I'll leave to someone more experienced than I to explain the difference between a period "bodice and skirt" and the modern concept of a "skirt and blouse".

[ElizabethClark]

Bodice & Skirt I: the bodice is made over a fitted lining, though the fashion fabric may be full, and any fullness at the waist is controlled by a fitted band or binding. It does not have any "bodice" fabric below this waistband, and doesn't "tuck", etc to stay in. This is the sort of arrangement you'd find with a teen girl's "Garibaldi" bodice in scarlet wool flannel, or a sheer white bodice/waist worn with a silk skirt and jacket.

Bodice & Skirts II: this would be a basque-style of bodice, which does not tuck at all, but which is fairly fitted to the body, and has lower skirts that flare out over the hip of the dress skirts. While the two pieces are worn as a set, they are not normally attached to one another.

Blouse & Skirt (Modern): a long, loose-fitting shirt garment is tucked into the waistband of a skirt. This usually blouses over at some point, destroying the tidy waistline, and does not have the controlled fullness of a period bodice or waist. This style is Not Appropriate for historic clothing, unless one is reenacting the Women's Business Wear in the Mid-1980s--which we're not. :)

Wrappers: ditto to Carolann's Excellent Comments! The construction is rather more complicated than the "nightgown" shape sometimes seen at events. Having been pregnant a few times, I can honestly say that a well-fitted wrapper in the very last weeks of pregnancy is a boon to one's self esteem--the back is fitted down, so it's only the front that looks like a barn--one is still neat, tidy, and trim through the back waist.

(That being said--it's also entirely possible to wear a normal dress through the majority of the pregnancy, resorting to loose garments like a sacque bodice and skirts in the latest stages. The dress can be made with a slightly larger waist, and it rides up over the bulge.)

(Also, several logical points to consider in the "they were pregnant all the time, so they wore this loose nighgown thing with an apron":

1: In cultures with no artificial birth control, reproductive "space" tends to occur naturally at 18 months to 4 years--4 years being a long interval, and primarily in subsistence-level societies where extended breastfeeding and low-caloric intake coincide. So while a woman might have pregnancies every few years, there are still gaps between--and that's if she never says "not tonight, dear."

2: I'm in the childbearing years. While I like wearing modern maternity clothes for comfort in the last three months or so, I get out of them as soon as possible, and back into my "figure" clothes. I've seen nothing that would indicate women simply sat around waiting to be pregnant--with the use of moderate corseting, it's possible to be back into non-pregnancy clothing in just a week or two, less if one has some comfortable stays on hand. No one wants to stay a Barn Forever.

3: Clothing wears out... especially clothing that gets nursed in. (I swear breastmilk dissolves textiles.) Taking that Experiential Archaeology tack again, if I have one length of cotton to make a dress, I'll be making a normal dress, but with deep seam allowances in the sides and darts, and some extra fabric saved back for a new waistband. It's more time-effective to re-set the skirts to a larger band, and expand the dress for late-pregnancy wear, than to use the fabric on a wrapper that won't convert to an everyday dress very easily. When you think of a wrapper as a robe, rather than as a dress, you quickly see why most women will not wear them outside the house. Of course, there are a few references to wearing them at the end of the Oregon Trail (when everything else had worn completely out, and the mortification of having to do so is clear in the passages), and there will always be a few underclass odd-balls who live in such a garment because they're too slovenly to do otherwise. :)

[Drygoods]

Here is another answer to the question of what did the poor wear. Don't forget that many poor purchased their clothing from used clothing vendors. It was common practice for many decades prior to the war for people to sell their old clothing to vendors, rag and bone men &c, to get a little ready money towards the purchase of future new clothes. Often the poor found this the only way to keep themselves together as they could not afford the expense of hiring a tailor and purchasing new cloth.

Here is an example from Mary Chestnut's diary, March 18, 1864:
Went to sell some of my colored dresses. What a scene -- such piles of rubbish -- and mixed up with it all, such splendid Parisian silks and satins. A mulatto woman kept the shop under the roof of an out-of-way old house. The ci-devant rich, the white ladies, sell to, the negroes buy of, this woman."

Mfr,
Judith Peebles

[rebelrose]

"Bodice & Skirts II: this would be a basque-style of bodice, which does not tuck at all, but which is fairly fitted to the body, and has lower skirts that flare out over the hip of the dress skirts. While the two pieces are worn as a set, they are not normally attached to one another."

Keep in mind I have never seen up close a dress from this time period in a VERY, very long time (I'm trying to visualize your description). If the bodice is fitted to the body and is not attached or tucked in, is it so snug that it goes under the skirt (so as not to show the midriff area) but does not blossom out after a while?

Thank you to everyone who has responded. This has all been very helpful. Sidebar: a website called the Cotton Loft is selling some cloth under the title "Civil War collection" but the prints don't look like what I've read is appropriate (again, the info I've read could be wrong). Is anyone familiar with this site? http://www.quiltingcottontest.com/

--Lisa Jillani

[ElizabethClark]

No, a basque bodice goes over the skirts--it's a style common in the 50s, and seen in different forms in the 60s (riding habits and travelling dresses, for instance). No tucking at all! The bodice basque is worn over the skirts, and creates an entire ensemble. If you have the Stella Blum Godey's print book, you'll see quite a few in this style for the 50s, for a firm visual.

I've not come across any "tuck in" styles from the mid-century, barring mens' shirts and women's chemises.

[KarinTimour]

Robin Stokes is another great vendor of women's clothing. I've got three dresses that she's made for me, and I love them all. She's won first place at the the North South Skirmish Association dress competition for the past four or five years, and last year won their Delaney Award for her hand-sewn workdress.

Some of you may remember that two years ago she and Beth Miller Hall gave joint sewing lessons in Gettysburg as a partnership entitled "Hall and Stokes" -- she also has worked with Juanita Leisch in putting together the recent Artifacts Forum in Charleston.

We spoke this morning and she mentioned that she's now sewing full-time from her home in Western New Jersey. If you're interested in getting more detaiils, drop her an email at stokes_w@msn.com

Sincerely,
Karin Timour
"The Stories in the Socks" - Women in the Civil War Conference, Richmond, VA, June 2004
Period Knitting -- Socks, Hats, Balaclavas
Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
Email: Ktimour@aol.com

[VMurphy]

In adding my 2cents...although there are many of "us" (authentically minded experienced period seamstresses)
I would highly suggest that your wife find someone as close to her as possible if she hires a dress made.
It is far more likely that the fit will be proper if she can be present for a couple of fittings.

A good fit can be attained, through the mail, but it's far easier to make a garment with a good and proper fit, if it can be personally fitted. :wink_smil

On topic of dress re: Wrappers.
Wrappers are a wonderful addition to a reenactors wardrobe, as I'm sure they were to any lady of the 19thc. who acquired one.
In the documention included with Sandra Altman's Wrapper Pattern is a statement:
"There are fashionable wrappers and dressing gowns and common or serviceable wrappers and dressing gowns. Both fasionable and serviceable they are an undress
garment worn only in private rather than public settings."

The doctumentation goes on to quote several passages from diaries and journals...in reference to making wrappers.
One of which is "On Wednesday, I finished a wrapper and began a calico dress for myself"

I have to encourage any lady whether sewing for herself or hiring it done...to purchase a Past Pattern of her garment.
The research and documentation that comes with each Pattern is a testiment to Ms.Altman's work and the authenticity of the pattern.

Regards
Vivian Murphy